Sir Ralph Henry Knox, KCB, VD, PC (21 April 1836 – 21 July 1913) was a British civil servant. He was

Permanent Under-Secretary of State for War The position of Under-Secretary of State for War was a British government position, first applied to Evan Nepean (appointed in 1794). In 1801 the offices for War and the Colonies were merged and the post became that of Under-Secretary of State for ...

from 1897 to 1901.

Biography

The son of Robert Knox, editor of the ''

Morning Herald The ''Morning Herald'' was an early daily newspaper in the United Kingdom. The newspaper was founded in 1780 by the Reverend Sir Henry Bate Dudley, former editor of ''The Morning Post''. It was initially a liberal paper aligned with the Prince o ...

'', Ralph Knox was educated at

Trinity College, Dublin , name_Latin = Collegium Sanctae et Individuae Trinitatis Reginae Elizabethae juxta Dublin , motto = ''Perpetuis futuris temporibus duraturam'' (Latin) , motto_lang = la , motto_English = It will last i ...

. He entered the

War Office The War Office was a department of the British Government responsible for the administration of the British Army between 1857 and 1964, when its functions were transferred to the new Ministry of Defence (MoD). This article contains text from ...

as a temporary clerk (one of 150 appointed as a result of the

Crimean War The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia. Geopolitical causes of the war included the de ...

) in January 1856 and was added to the establishment as junior clerk in 1858. After serving as secretary of two royal commissions, Knox was appointed Accountant-General at the War Office in 1882. In 1897, he was promoted

in 1897, serving until his retirement 1901. In retirement, he served on various commissions, including ones connected with the

Cardwell Reforms The Cardwell Reforms were a series of reforms of the British Army undertaken by Secretary of State for War Edward Cardwell between 1868 and 1874 with the support of Liberal prime minister William Ewart Gladstone. Gladstone paid little attention ...

. Knox was appointed CB in 1880 and promoted KCB in 1895. He was sworn of the

Privy Council A privy council is a body that advises the head of state of a state, typically, but not always, in the context of a monarchic government. The word "privy" means "private" or "secret"; thus, a privy council was originally a committee of the mon ...

in 1903. Know died in 1913 on a train from Oxted, where he resided, to London.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Knox, Ralph Alumni of Trinity College Dublin 1913 deaths Permanent Under-Secretaries of State for War Civil servants in the War Office Knights Commander of the Order of the Bath Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom